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Class 3i.aux 

Book , Aa7Cfe 
Co[p§htN°_ l31\ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE COUNTRY BY THE SEA 

A BOOK OF VERSE 



BY 

HENRY ROBINSON PALMER 



PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 

BROWN ALUMNI MAGAZINE COMPANY 

1911 






.V'^'V 



vV 



Copyright, 1911 

BY THE 

Brown Alumni Magazine Company 



PRINTED BY 

E. A. JOHNSON & COMPANY 

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND 






€-CI.A2S9951 



i To 

1 MY WIFE 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Acknowledgment is herewith made to the 
newspapers in which many of the pieces of verse 
in this volume originally appeared, among them 
the Springfield Republican, Hartford CouranU 
New York Tribune, New York Sun and Provi- 
dence Journal Special acknowledgment is due 
to the following publications for permission to 
reprint the pieces noted— Life: "Beauty's Sis- 
ters " and " Love and Hate ; " the Sunday School 
Times: "In Defeat," "No Country That is 
Strange" and "The Silversmith of Van;" the 
Independent: "The Armies of the Grass;" and 
the Century Magazine : " The Deed." 



CONTENTS 
The Gracious Year 

In Praise of March 9 

Spring's Paradox 11 

The Brook of Spring 12 

To the Evening Star 13 

By the Brook 14 

April Twenty-third at Stratford 17 

The HiUtop by the Sea 18 

Golden May 19 

The Ocean of the Sky 21 

The Shipwrecked Butterfly 23 

The Crimson Rose 24 

In the Still Pool 26 

Clematis 27 

In Memory 28 

The Cosmos in Late October 29 

The Armies of the Grass 30 

When the Sun Comes Out 33 

Dusk in Winter Woods 34 

Sunset in February 34 

Other Verses 

Coronation Day 37 

In Memory of Corot 40 

In Defeat 42 

The Road 43 

Silence 44 

Sacrifice 46 

Identity 47 



The Deed .48 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus 49 

A Song for College Hill 52 

The Racers 53 

Dreyfus 55 

Kipling's Getting Better 57 

Parted 59 

Arthur Sullivan 60 

The Violin 61 

In Old Volterra 63 

Russia in the South 66 

The Drum 69 

The Girls of College Hill 70 

Beauty's Sisters 72 

Leo XIII 73 

John Hay 76 

Two Views of War 77 

When the Circus Comes to Town 78 

The Hills of Pain 79 

Archaeology 80 

The Campus Tower 81 

The Earth and I 82 

Then and Now in Port Arthur 83 

Alexis Nikolevitch 86 

No Country that is Strange 87 

Steadfast and True 88 

Alchemy ... 89 

The Ghost 90 

The Silversmith of Van 90 

The Voice 91 

The New America 92 

Love and Hate 94 

Youth and Night 95 



THE GRACIOUS YEAR 



IN PRAISE OF MARCH 

Around the twilight's crackHng blaze 
We spoke the circling seasons' praise ; 
And one extolled the reign of snows, 
And one the time of jacqueminots. 
But yet a third, of freakish mind. 
To gusty March w^as much inclined. 
Quoth he, " It is a month of cheer. 
The breath and freshener of the year. 
It whispers to the wintrj^ brain. 
And bids its thought grow green again. 
It beats upon the sleepy blood. 
And stirs the sluggish pulse to flood. 
The rosy school girl's tangled tress 
It tosses with a blithe caress ; 
The sturdy lad at strenuous play 
Is kindred to the vocal day. 



" I like to see the branches bent 
Before the Unseen Element, 
The war-lord of the frosty North 
Who sends his gallant squadrons forth. 
All da}' they plough the troubled sky, 
With snowy topsails straining high ; 
All night their steady way they fare 
Across the ocean of the air. 

" Deep in the wood the wind is still ; 

It tiptoes down the yellow hill ; 

It flings its raucous lute away 

To hear the valle}' minstrel play — 

The harper brook, whose lively tune 

Is no pale prophecy of June : 

Naught of impatience for the spring 

Is echoed from its sounding string ; 

' Sufficient to each perfect daj' 

Be its own joy,' it seems to say. 

Who asks of budding April aught 

On whom the leafless boughs have wrought, 

The golden twigs, the amber grass. 

The purple of the forest-pass } " 

And so he paused whose freakish mind 
To gust>' March was much inclined. 
An advocate of no pretence 
Who pleased us with his eloquence. 

10 



We liked his cheerful judgment well, 
And silence at the hearthstone fell, 
While round the house the tempest roared 
And down the glowing chimney poured. 



SPRING'S PARADOX 

This is the paradox of spring : 
Rhapsody touched with suffering; 
Longing— and recollection's sting ; 

Influence of the gracious sun ; 
Living and loving new begun — 
Dry leaves a-swirling, dead and dun ; 

Carol and fantasy that float 
From many a feather-tufted throat ; 
Rapture — and passion's minor note ; 

Gray days and golden, sheen and rain ; 
Grieving and gladness, comrades twain ; 
Triumph that shares its heart with pain. 



11 



THE BROOK OF SPRING 

Hark, the brook of spring 

That foams around the bend ! 
Melody and sunlight 

With its crystal blend. 
Across the beaten stones 

Its flashing breakers pour 
A fantas}' of ocean 

Upon a mimic shore. 

Where the willow swings 

Above the quiet pool, 
Tiptoe run the currents, 

Sinuous and cool. 
Cresses edge the way. 

Yellow cowslips shine 
Like a feast of lanterns 

Strung in golden line. 

Soon the sounding brook 
In sober mood will flow, 

Falt'ring through the meadow. 
Doubtful and slow. 

Still its deeps will stir. 
And still its shallows sing. 



12 



But grass to grass shall whisper : 
Oh, the brook of spring! 



TO THE EVENING STAR 

Venus, I saw thee riding high 

In the cloudless afternoon. 
The golden sun was in the sky. 

And the yellow crescent moon ; 
A luminous trio, thou and they. 
That sailed the sapphire seas of day. 

When deep beyond the darkening hill 

The sun had floated far. 
Still in the blazing azure, still 

Thou wert my beauty star, 
A sovereign on a dusky throne 
That needed no foundation stone. 

And all that through thy shimmering seas 
Their lighted journeys sailed, 

Planets and lanterned Pleiades, 
Before thy splendor paled, 

Though round their prows a glory fell 

As of the gentle asphodel. 



13 



On the primeval roofs of Rome 
Thy deathless brilliance poured, 

Kindled the Babylonish dome 
And touched the prophet's gourd; 

Above all buried joy and shame 

Is set thine undiminished flame. 

Star of the evening, queen of night. 
When lies in dust our dead desire. 

When sense and soul have taken flight. 
Flash forth thy faithful fire ! 

Still keep thy trysting in the West 

With those who love the loveliest. 



BY THE BROOK 

I KNOW a sheltered brook 
Where the wild bird sings. 

Where the graycoat thrush 
In the gray tree swings ; 

And the color of the bough 
Hides the color of his wings. 



14 



Where the drab branch breaks 
Into shining- yellow spraj^ 

The black-winged bird 
Takes his happy April way. 

With his crimson-feather shield 
Flashing bright across the day. 

The bubbles of the brook 

With the laughing current glide ; 
They circle in the dance, 

They sparkle in their pride, 
Though scarce beyond a breath 

Can the foamy band abide. 

At anchor in the sun 

By the venerable oak 
Hangs the tiny fleet 

Of the insect folk, 
Lifted on a wave 

That never foamed or broke. 

And the brook sweeps down 
On its spring-enchanted way, 

And dreams in its joy 
Of a morrow like to-day. 

Or in a vision sees 
The broad and splendid bay. 



15 



Little can it know 

Of the deep salt tide, 
Where the breakers beat 

And the tall ships ride, 
And the fog steals in 

Like a veiled and snowy bride. 

And I say to myself 

As I tarry by the stream, 

Oh, why should we fret ? 
Oh, why should we dream ? 

Let us rest by the brook, 
Where the still woods gleam ! 

Is the gale's caress 

Like the zephyr's kiss ? 
Has the turbulent sea 

Some satisfying bliss. 
Some lovelier repose 

Within its bright abyss ? 

Nay, linger, fellow brook, 
Where the wild bird sings, 

Where the gray coat thrush 
In the gray tree swings — 

There is nothing else like this 
In the great scheme of things. 



16 



APRIL TWENTY-THIRD AT 
STRATFORD 

To this green world the soul of Shakespeare woke, 
When the thrush whistled on the snowy spray ; 

When the warm wind to April Avon spoke 
And sent her dancing down her blossomed way. 

The kindly face of Nature flushed and smiled 

Over the birthday of this little child. 

Still buds the spray above the flashing stream, 

As in that lustrous April long ago ; 
Still flows his music, still his measures gleam. 

Limpid as Avon and as white as snow — 
The scented snow that bourgeons on the bough 
And pours its perfume through his meadows now. 



Stratford y 
April 23, 1902 



17 



THE HILLTOP BY THE SEA 

When I hear the sound of the sluggard feet 
That travel the hot and dusty street, 
My light-wing thought steals off to be 
With the creeping sap in the greenwood tree. 

I shut my eyes to the city sights 
And dream of a hilltop of delights, 
Where the saxifrage and the violet 
In the shining sea-fog flutter wet. 

No stately garden plat is mine. 
Where captive beauty nods in line. 
But I know a field that chance has sown, 
And I call its splendors all my own. 

Here in the midst of stone and brick, 
My springtide country soul is sick — 
Sick for the budding greenwood tree 
And the mist- white hilltop by the sea. 



18 



GOLDEN MAY 

There was never a witching road, my lass. 
Like the witching road of May ; 

And naught in the year is lovelier 
Than the gold along its way, 

Where the yellow willows flutter. 
And the yellow barberries sway. 

Now is the golden age renewed 
To shimmering copse and field. 

The burnished brook wears a golden look. 
For the sun is a blazing shield. 

And the twain are Loved and Lover, 
In dew and flame revealed. 

We'll put the town behind us, lass. 

And follow the winding way. 
We'll laugh at the dusty path and gusty. 

Sport for the north wind's play. 
There's wine in the zephyr's chalice ; 

There's health in the breeze of May. 

It flushes your rounded cheek, my lass. 
And tangles your golden hair. 



19 



Your golden braid and the deeper shade 

That's only a trace less fair- 
Like the memory of a rapture, 

Or a shadow upon the air. 

There are none to say us nay, my lass, 
Since our two hearts are one. 

We'll own no rule of creed or school, 
No despot under the sun. 

But fare our pleasant journey 
Till the pleasant day is done. 

On his ultimate bough the redbreast sits. 

Enamored of the sky. 
List, ah list, to the rhapsodist 

Who sings he knows not why. 
Yet we may share his gladness. 

My own true love and L 

There was never a witching road, my lass. 
Like the witching road of May, 

Where green and gold the woods unfold 
And cowslips star the day. 

Then ho ! for the road together — 
God keep us one alway ! 



20 



THE OCEAN OF THE SKY 

In the ocean of the sky 

The cloudy tides go by, 
Impetuous fare and ceaseless bear 
Their precious freight on eddying air, 

Perfume and purple dye. 

By earth's green banks they sweep, 

As still and soft as sleep. 
But ocean's tide is not so wide 
As the ethereal streams that glide 

In the vast upper deep. 

Their quiet currents flow 
Where the high forests blow, 
They gather the wine of tree and vine. 
The scent of grape, the breath of pine, 
And scatter it as they go. 
Frail argosies they float 
That waft the quivering note, 
The echoing trill of greenwood hill. 
The unconscious art, the untaught skill. 
Of many a feathered throat. 



21 



When the great red sun is spent, 

They follow the track he went ; 
They pillage and bar his cloudy car 
And fling as gift to the Evening Star 

The gems of the Occident. 

She sits like a queen on high 

As the sunset tides go by, 
And round her throne like jewels strown 
The luminous hues of night are blown 

In the ocean of the sky. 

God sets the tides of the sea ; 

In His gracious hand they be ; 
And twice a day they stir the bay 
With the smell of salt and the flash of spray, 

And twdce to the ocean flee. 

And I like to think He keeps 

The key of the greater deeps, 
And everywhere spreads out His care. 
And covers the ocean of the air 

With the love that never sleeps. 



22 



THE SHIPWRECKED BUTTERFLY 

As through the sunny fields I went, 

There fell upon my careless gaze 
A small unlucky butterfly, 

Imprisoned in a spider's maze. 
So tight his folded wings were held 

Within his captor's silver thread, 
So still his fragile body lay, 

I thought the ethereal creature dead. 

Yet, when I tore away the web. 

And set the tiny captive free, 
He stirred and fluttered from my touch, 

And steered his course across the lea. 
Glad in his unforeseen release. 

His hot breast throbbed, I cannot doubt. 
And blessed, perhaps, the timely hand 

That burst his jail and let him out. 

I thank the chance that led my path 
Where hung the shipwrecked butterfly. 

And drew him from his silken reef. 
Back to the billows of the sky. 

I smile to picture him afloat, 
Where swallow flits and cricket chants. 



23 



Wisest and happiest of all 
The meadow's small inhabitants. 



THE CRIMSON ROSE 

CRIMSON rose, you share 
The bloom of sunset skies, 

And all the odorous East 
Within your petals lies. 

About your fair domain 
Hangs beauty's tender spell : 

The workman years have wrought 
Unweariedly and well. 

1 marvel much to think 
That in a world of woe 

A spirit so serene 
Should dare to bud and blow ; 

Should clamber unafraid, 

Forgetful of decay, 
Invoke the sunny air 

And dream its doubts away. 



24 



Deep and glad in the dark 
The rose tree winds and dings ; 

Glad and high it lifts 
Its pink ethereal wings. 

In stalk and twig there runs 

A passion to be free ; 
Of earth it is, and yet 

Of earth it dare not be. 

The dull of sight may sigh, 
The faint of heart may weep, 

But simplest blossoms still 
Their sturdy faith will keep. 

A prophecy of joy 

In leaf and tendril flows, 
And all that love can wish 

Is pictured in the rose. 



25 



IN THE STILL POOL 

In the still pool reflected lay 

Sunshine and shadow, leaf and grass, 
All the soft glory of the day. 
As in a glass. 

Like a fair nether world they were. 

Mirrored in nature's dreamy mood ; 
Never a zephyr came to stir 
The unruffled wood. 

In the unmoving shallows rose 

Pillars of snowy cloud on high. 
Lofty and beautiful as those 
In the blue sky. 

In the still pool we gazed and found 

Earth in its luminous arra}^ 
Yet more than earth, for heav'n had crowned 
The bright display. 

So to the shallows of the soul 

God may His highest thought impart 
And with the joy of Heav'n console 
The quiet heart. 



26 



CLEMATIS 

Thp:re is no sweeter scent than this 
Of autumn's snowy clematis, 
The fragrance of a trembling flower 
That broods upon the dusky hour. 

I cherish still one dismal day 

When fog had wreathed the sapphire bay, 

And on the dripping silence fell 

The clamor of the harbor bell ; 

When, hurr>dng homeward through the damp, 
I dreamed upon the evening lamp. 
The cheerful tale, the golden rhyme. 
That mark the quiet winter time. 

Then from its feathery^ precipice 
There swept the smell of clematis, 
A tossing, odorous tide that wrought 
A gentle wonder in my thought : 

As on the spirit's twilight gloom 

Some flowering mood may break and bloom 

And to the mind's interior sight 

Pour out its color and its light. 



27 



So down the darkening street there went 
A rolling sea of grateful scent, 
And Summer, all in garlands dressed, 
Was borne upon the foamy crest. 

IN MEMORY 

In radiant beauty clad. 

The day and the evening shine ; 
The sun and the clustered stars 

Foretoken a world divine. 
But Oh, for the clasp of a cherished hand 

That once I took in mine ! 

There's calm on the upland path. 
Where the crow flies dark and shrill ; 

There's peace in the narrow^ cove. 
Where the tide runs deep and still. 

But Oh, for the light of the tender eyes 
That make mine own to fill ! 

I wander the fragrant road 
That winds by the sounding sea, 

And the surf's majestic song 
Is promise and pledge to me. 

But Oh, the unwitting, happy past. 
And the lonely years to be ! 

28 



THE COSMOS IN LATE OCTOBER 

Within the russet garden 

The gay pink cosmos waves, 
A roseate survival 

Above a thousand graves. 
The summer's host have perished 

Amid their grassy tombs, 
But, bright above the ruin, 

The cosmos bends and blooms. 

The hedge is bleak about it. 

The trees are brown and bare, 
Yet still the cosmos flutters 

Upon the bitter air. 
And June with all its graces 

Of rosy twig and spray 
Ne'er fashioned lovelier flowers 

Than these that blow to-day. 

From out the North to-morrow 

The frosty winds may frown 
Upon the russet garden 

And fling the cosmos down. 
But this one day it triumphs 

Above the drifted leaves, 
A joy that has its sources 

Beyond a world that grieves. 

29 



THE ARMIES OF THE GRASS 

The armies of the grass 
Their countless troopers mass 

Where thickets gleam beside the stream 

And cheery morning's struggling beam 
Lights up the dark morass. 
Their tufted banners float 
Where the marsh minstrel's throat. 

To rapture lent and all intent 

On the far-flushing Orient, 
Pours forth its bugle note. 

They muster, rank and file. 

Along the wooded aisle. 
And hold their still, mysterious drill 
W^ithin the shadow of the hill 

For many a flowered mile. 

Their blithe musicians come. 

With drone of bagpipe some. 
And some from sedge and meadow-edge. 
The fifing cricket from the hedge, 

The partridge with his drum. 

At fall of quiet dusk 
On fluttering blade and husk. 
When redolent and fragrant scent 



30 



upon the brooding gloom is spent 
By clematis and musk, 
They light their steady lamps 
In phosphorescent damps, 

While to and fro with friendly glow 

The airy lantern-bearers go 

To guard the sleeping camps. 

When Autumn blows her horn 
Amid the shrivelled com, 
And sumac-flame has put to shame 
The hues that with the Summer came. 
They gather unforlorn 
In gold and russet dressed, 
They crowd the stormy crest, 
And laugh to hear from far and near 
The scarlet-coated trumpeter 
Rally her sturdiest. 

In dark and cold they grope 
To hold the snowy slope. 
And down the line by burdened pine. 
Through tangled underwood and vine. 
Is sped the watchword : " Hope ! " 
Their simple courage clings 
To innumerable springs. 



31 



And, wasted not but fresh and hot, 
Life unforgetting, unforgot, 
In the deep heart of things. 

I like to think that though 
All we as grass must grow, 
To have our day, our little play, 
To fight our fight as best we may, 
Unfaltering we go. 
Man fashions as of brass 
His Doctrine and his Mass, 
But blooming meads are better creeds. 
And we can trust the Lord who leads 
The armies of the grass. 



32 



WHEN THE SUN COMES OUT 

When the sun comes out 

After weary days of snow, 
He sweeps across the meadow 

And sets it all aglow. 
He laughs at crafty Winter, 

He storms her white redoubt. 
' Tis : Fly, ye cloudy army ! 

When the sun comes out. 

He flashes through the garden. 

Where droops the burdened branch. 
He lights his thousand candles 

Above the avalanche. 
Then : Wake ye drowsy hedges. 

That dream of warmth and dew ! 
The world has seen a vision 

And blossoms forth anew. 

When the sun comes out 

On the ice-encompassed shore. 
Where the black ducks scatter 

And the white gulls soar, 
' Tis : Dance, ye merry billows ! 

Ye lusty breakers, shout ! 
Oh, the magic of the ocean 

When the sun comes out ! 

33 



DUSK IN WINTER WOODS 

Brown pool and shadow black, 
Scarlet gleam o'er winter's wrack, 
Lighted bush and mirrored tree, 
Dusky sense of mystery, 
Branches woven on the West, 
Oak in ragged russet dressed. 
Pallid birch and purple snow. 
Grasses flaming in the glow, 
Rosy cloud that blows aloft 
And moon of silver shining soft. 



SUNSET IN FEBRUARY 

Ali. day the sullen clouds had hung 

Above the breathless marsh and lea. 
And round the sombre shore had swung 

The sluggish currents of the sea ; 
But, just before the sun went down. 

Across the wave his glory came. 
And set its signet on the town 

And touched the windows with its flame. 



34 



Then rose the slumbrous northern breeze 

And down the shadowed valley rang, 
And past the amethystine trees 

With lusty ardor swept and sang. 
He dashed beyond the yellow sand, 

And called the harbor tides to play, 
And raced the billows, hand in hand. 

And capped their shining locks with spray. 

' Twas thus in league the wind and sun 

Redecked the winter afternoon. 
Lit up the leafless boughs of dun. 

And taught the reeds a sturdy tune. 
The ocean moved in shimmering blue 

That late was lying all forlorn, 
And pallid houses took the hue 

That marks the harvest of the corn. 

And we who by the waters stood 

And watched the vessels swerving slow. 
And saw, beyond the violet wood. 

The hillside patches of the snow. 
Wished not for summer's store of green. 

Her mellow light or chanting bird. 
For who could look on such a scene 

Unthralled, unhappy or unstirred ! 



35 



OTHER VERSES 



CORONATION DAY 

August 9, 1902 

Beneath blue August's circling skies the kingly 

pageant flows 
With flashes of the emerald and color of the rose ; 
With many a lad in pride of plaid 
And many a trooper khaki-clad 
To hail the pallid sovereign as through the town 
he goes. 

Around him stretches Britain's strength, before 

him march his men, 
The stealthy-footed jungle-folk, the farmers of the 
fen; 
The dusk of hair from Ind are there. 
And Auckland's azure-eyed and fair 
Who in their southern seas have reared the British 
Isles again. 



37 



For him the ribboned bagpipes drone, the thrilling 

bugles play, 
For him the ivied belfries chime, the solemn 
pulpits pray ; 
And East and West have sent their best 
With flushing cheek and swelling breast 
To laud the king and emperor on this consummate 
day. 

Yet not alone for him the shout that sounds along 

the street. 
Nor yet the eye's spontaneous dew, the heart's 
impulsive beat ; 
For joy of race and pomp of place 
Light up the Anglo-Saxon face, 
And aw^e of empire stirs the soul with surgings 
strong and sweet. 

Here is the centuries' handiwork, the task of time 

and fate : 
For this the embattled ages wrought, imperious 
and elate. 
The strident years of blood and tears 
Ring sharp and loud in England's cheers ; 
And unforgiving grief is there and unforgetting 
hate. 



38 



What miracle of tide and sun is this amazing 

hour 
When Athabasc and Ethiop are met by London 
Tower ; 
When Dover gleams on Kashmian streams 
And starry-eyed Tasmania dreams 
Of Avon's storied loveliness and Kentish hedge 
and bower ! 

By mighty chance or mightier Law the crimson 

flag has flown 
Above the murky continents and marked them for 
its own, 
And tribes that wept and states that slept 
To ways of love and light have crept 
And built their alien hearths anew around the 
English throne. 



39 



IN MEMORY OF COROT 

Swift steals the Spring across the lea, 

With dancing feet and laughing song ; 
Her locks by breezes tossed— and see ! 

She leads a milk-white lamb along. 
Above her buds the golden tree, 

Beneath, the starry cowslips throng. 
And with the redwing's melody 

Mingles the sunshine strong. 

Now here amid this lively show 

Of kindling branch and conscious flower. 
We think of him whose springtides glow 

In many a canvas brook and bower ; 
Who bade the silvery hedges blow 

Beyond their brief appointed hour : 
Green Nature's prophet-priest, Corot, 

Lover of sun and shower. 

The dreams that come to us with Spring, 

The fears, the hopes, that round us press. 
The blissful, tearful wakening, 

The thoughts that scourge the soul they bless — 
These, these, were his, though scarce their sting 

His dryad-haunted woods confess, 
Where lark may soar and linnet sing 

Beyond our weariness. 

40 



He brought to lake and lane a heart 

Unaged, unspoiled and undefiled, 
And blended with his wonder-art 

The vision of the little child : 
A spectacle from sin apart, 

A kingdom innocent and mild, 
Where yet the April pulse must start. 

Falter and flutter wild. 

Round him at four-score still the field 

Fashioned its sparkling spell of gray, 
And to his death-bed stood revealed 

The ancient wonder of the May. 
From rosy skies* the viols pealed 

Where feathery minstrels came to play. 
Oh ! that the gods to us might yield 

So fair a dying day. 



* Shortly before he died, Corot had the window opened, gazed at the 
sky and said with a feeble voice : " When the Spring comes, I will paint a 
beautiful picture ; I see a sky full of roses.' 



41 



IN DEFEAT 

We watched him in the chilHng time 
When plan and purpose went amiss, 

And guessed, despite the conflict's grime, 
The burning of the traitor's kiss. 

We knew that underneath his calm 
The tide of feeling rose and fell. 

For he had dreamed upon the palm. 
And liked the thought of triumph well. 

But here by cruel souls beset, 
And there by coward hearts betrayed. 

Beleaguered sore, resisting yet. 
He saw his cherished vision fade. 

Around him in his time of gloom 

There stood the slend'rest guard of friends, 
A handful in a hollow room 

That knew not how to make amends. 

We watched his mobile features while 
The tears were in our tragic eyes, 

And glimpsed about his lips a smile. 
As if he had achieved the prize. 



42 



The bitter prayer of hate he spurned, 
The plea of grief he put aside, 

And to the gentlest duties turned. 
And simplest labors sanctified. 

There was no rancor in his breast ; 

It pulsed to music soft and sweet ; 
And we beheld, who loved him best, 

His godlike triumph in defeat. 



THE ROAD 

The hated road leads straight ahead 
For torn and blistered feet to tread, 
A hostile stretch of glare and dust 
Through which we plod because we must. 

Where are the starlike bloom and spray 
That wreathed the road of yesterday, 
The tow'ring wood whose leafy braid 
Touched the hot earth with gracious shade. 

The tender rose that seemed to hold 
All hearts within its heart of gold ? 
These with the day of joy are gone. 
And still the bare road beckons on. 



43 



The bare road ! Harsh and gray it gleams 
To bid us from our Land of Dreams — 
The land of green and amethyst 
That borders on the road we missed. 

Yet here beside the moorland pool 
The wind of dusk blows deep and cool. 
And where the sunset hues are spent 
Breathes the white blossom of content. 

*' O bitter road ! " at morn we said, 
And strove along uncomforted. 
" O blessed road ! " at eve we say, 
And kneel beside the hated way. 



SILENCE 

" Silence— eldest of things." — Charles Lamb 

Silence, the first-born of the night 
And daughter of the abyss. 

Was cradled in the boundless skies. 
The black immensities. 

And never a creature near her stirred. 

There was no sound of wind or bird 
Down Heav'n's dark precipice. 



44 



Through the long time she brooded there 

She found no mate, no friend, 
Till the brave light came stealing by 

To make her sweet amend : 
Gentle and calm as she, and far 
Trailing the splendor of the star 

With her still self to blend. 

But when there flocked a noisy troop 

Along her cloistered ways — 
The sturd}^ gust, the sullen sea, 

The man-enkindled blaze — 
The earth's impetuous round she fled, 
In stately solitude to thread 

The blue unmeasured maze. 

And there she waits from age to age, 

While we, a hostile crew. 
Fashion our little destinies 

And speed our dramas through. 
Forgetful of her sure return 
When sun and star no longer burn, 

And love is ashes too. 



45 



SACRIFICE 

Whether it be the slow device of God, 
Patient and fertile in the human breast ; 

Whether it be the virtue of the clod, 
Strangely self-willed and nobly self -expressed ; 

Out of our graceless origins there springs. 
Fair as the pool-born flower, unselfishness. 

Out of the avaricious scheme of things, 

Out of the universal greed and press. 
Rises, above each small, ungenerous aim. 

Rises, beyond all covetous desire. 
Godlike a motive hot and fierce as flame. 

Godlike a longing keen and white as fire — 
Glad self-denial, passion pure of blame. 

Touched with the transport of the heav'nly choir. 

Is it the ageless miracle of God, 

Wreathing us in His own unselfish guise ? 
Is it the untaught purpose of the clod. 

Shaping a bright, mysterious surprise, 
Glow of the dust, mere travail of the sod, 

Out of a selfish chaos, sacrifice ? 



1910 



46 



IDENTITY 

Since in these pulses runs the untired blood 
Of countless generations dead and gone — 
A hundred of the savage Age of Stone, 
A hundred of the storied British wood ; 
The blood that beat before the fabulous Flood, 
And poured itself for many a creed and throne, 
I scarce can call myself my very own. 

Yet thou, beneath the stars, O Soul, that stood. 
Amazed with strange and futile thoughts like these, 
No less art compound of unnumbered souls 
That dreamed awhile on other lands and seas. 
And pondered vainly on the wheeling poles. 

Ah, who art thou, the hapless child of chance. 
Or still Thyself through every circumstance ? 



1910 



47 



THE DEED 

Here stands the deed in beauty dressed, 
The stately act that men delight to sing, 

The loveliest and the lowliest, 

The unselfish heart's impetuous offering, 
The gift it fain inconsequent would fling 

(Nor praise itself nor count the cost nor falter) 

On dut>^'s sacrificial altar. 

So swift it glows upon our wond'ring gaze. 
It seems chance-destinied and new, 
Child of the moment's whim and hue ; 

But 't is the daughter of the uncounted days, 

The offspring of innumerable deeds, 
Small self-obscurements vowed to quiet hours. 

So the long generations of the w eeds 
Presage the perfect beauty of the flowers. 



48 



MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS 
AUGUSTUS * 

Here rests upon its snowy stone, 

As if to breathe the summer's gust, 
A figure by a hand unknown, 

That mingles with the Roman dust— 
A form that from its marble height 

Our paltry human lot disdains. 
For through the centuries' bloom and blight 

Its unbewildered bronze remains. 

It stands, a kingly work of art, 

As by the Tiber long ago 
It spoke to Donatello's heart. 

And tutored great Verrocchio ; 
A mighty shape that prophesied 

A new Augustus who should mould 
By Hudson's broader-flowing tide 

Grave Sherman and his horse of gold. 

It brings its tranquil mood to-day 
To cure the restless modern mind. 

" Be calm," Aurelius seems to say, 
" Be just, be simple and be kind." 



* Read at the unveiling of the equestrian statue of Marcus Aureliu; 
on Lincoln Field. Brown University, June 1, 1908 



49 



And here let those that grieve for power 
No longer on their strivings brood, 

But find their childhood's better hour 
Perchance remembered and renewed. 

From dreams that fever and enthrall, 

From greed of gain, from crass displa}^ 
From fickle Glory's fretful call. 

The Stoic tempts the world away ; 
As when above the troubled street. 

Where party's futile voices float. 
We hear, serenely near and sweet. 

The unvexed oriole's treetop note. 

Around his throne the emperor saw 

His armies surge like troubled seas. 
They bore the tables of the law 

To the white-foaming Hebrides. 
From Thebes to York they flashed their might. 

But he, the master of his soul, 
Wrought out beneath the starry night 

The larger law of self-control. 

Here in a land beyond his ken. 
Where Roman eagles never flew. 

We raise his lifelike form again. 
And sound his pagan praise anew ; 



50 



For still his quiet lips may preach 
Of transient passion's foolish quest, 

And still his healing thought may reach 
The envious and untranquil breast. 

Yet will his Roman creed suffice ? 

Are we by narrow nature bound ? 
Is there no Heav'n-derived device 

To free us from the thorny ground ? 
Our hearts cry out against a fate 

That makes us brother to the clod, 
Or bids us merge our high estate 

In the vague semblance of a god. 

Here struggles alien sign with sign — 

A laurel wreath, a briar crown ; 
Here sits the Pagan Antonine — 

Here rise the faith-built walls of Brown. 
His was the creed of night and myth, 

A moonlight glow on rock and tree ; 
His eyes forswore the dawn wherewith 

Our sight translates the land and sea. 

Teach us, O Pagan, day by day. 
Beyond the campus press and noise. 

Through shining hours and hours of gray, 
The equal mind, the starlight poise. 



51 



But grant us, Heav'n, a strength above 
The Stoic courage of despair, 

And let us lean upon the Love 
That guards and keeps us everywhere. 



A SONG FOR COLLEGE HILL 

O MOTHER dear, Brunonia, 

With love we turn to thee. 
Where'er we roam, our hearth and home 

Within thy gates we see. 
There starry-eyed Ambition wove 

Her bright and golden dream. 
And Fellowship, with heart and lip. 

Set all the world a-gleam. 

This earth has many a pleasant spot 

And many a castle fair, 
Where rivers run through shade and sun. 

And mountains lift in air ; 
Yet oft we think of college years. 

And oft remember still 
The song and shout that thronged about 

Brunonia's leaf>' hill. 

52 



When time has changed the raven hair 

And russet lock to gray, 
Affection yet will not forget 

That green and winding way. 
Oh, let us still our laurels wreathe 

For Alma Mater's crown ; 
While life shall last for her stand fast, 

And bless the name of Brown. 



THE RACERS 

In a shifty wind and splashing sea 
The great white racers dipped to lee, 
And over the line careened away. 
Like sea-birds in the breakers' spray. 

In every sailor's peering face 
Flushed high the excitement of the race, 
And tightened sheet and burdened pole 
Sang of the glory of the goal. 

The towering craft sped sleek and trig. 
Fore-and-aft and square-of-rig, 
The Sunbeam and the Fleur de Lys, 
And all their gallant company. 

53 



They cut the tide as cuts a knife, 
And moved like creatures glad of life, 
Like gulls that steer their arrowy path 
To mingle with the tempest's wrath. 

Over the ocean's foggy swell 
Their answering bosoms rose and fell. 
And every planked and iron form 
Seemed kindred to the god of storm. 

Like ghosts they passed the outpost light, 
And down the horizon dipped from sight. 
Let Fortune guard them as they sail. 
And back them with a western gale ! 

And here's a health to all the tars 
That toss beneath the flickering stars, 
While we within the peace of home 
Dream of the flashing of the foam. 



May, 1905 



54 



DREYFUS 

Not in the cloudy mountain top, 

Majestic and alone, 
Truth lifts her fateful sceptre up 

And rears her awful throne : 
But in the crowded market-place 

And in the prison-pen — 
Her judgment-seat is on the street 

And in the haunts of men. 

She hales the mighty to her bar. 

She bids the low arise. 
For craft and power are all in vain 

To blind her piercing eyes. 
Before her calm and serious gaze 

The haughty take affright ; 
Their lust and lore and golden store 

Are ashes in her sight. 

She watched them mass their frowning troops. 

And fling their banners high ; 
She saw them brand the innocent, 

And cast him out to die. 
They stripped the buttons from his coat, 

They marched him round to view. 
And ruthless broke with ringing stroke 

His sword and spirit too. 

55 



And only she of all the throng 

That watched his sore disgrace 
Let fall a pitying tear to match 

The anguish of his face. 
From loneliness to loneliness 

His barren pathway led, 
And none may know the stifled woe 

That shook the prisoner's bed. 

The love of God, divinely great, 

Is yet divinely small. 
It notes the eagle in his flight. 

The sparrow in his fall. 
Away from those who wrong the weak 

It turns its patient face, 
But bears relief to bitter grief 

In the far desert-place. 

It swept across the tropic sea ; 

It sought the captive out ; 
It cheered him on his lonely strand. 

And compassed him about. 
And Truth, who works her miracles 

To taunt the might of men. 
Rebuked the foes that round him rose 

And bore him home again. 



56 



Shall earthly pomp and earthly plot. 

Or yet the assassin's wrath, 
Avail to check imperial Truth 

Or turn her from her path ? 
Through all the army's tented fields 

Her silent couriers run, 
And soon or late, as sure as fate, 

God's justice will be done ! 

Septembers, 1899 



KIPLING'S GETTING BETTER 

The cheerful news is spread around. 

From mouth to mouth it hurries ; 
It threads the hurly-burly street. 

And down the alley scurries : 
Disease has yielded up its own. 

And loosed its icy fetter — 
In other words, the doctors say 

That Kipling's getting better. 

No crown is set upon his head. 
Nor yet imperial eagle ; 

57 



He's neither King nor President, 

But still his sway is regal. 
It binds the rich man and the poor, 

The prosperous and the debtor, 
And every mother's son is glad 

That Kipling's getting better. 

I know a curly-headed boy 

Who never reads the papers. 
His mind is filled with Jungle Books 

And various childish capers. 
To-day he struggled with the news. 

Each stubborn word and letter. 
" Oh, aren't 3 ou very glad," said he. 

That Kipling's getting better ? " 

Ah, well, the King upon his throne 

Is set above the fewest ; 
The rule that rules the loving heart 

Is after all the truest. 
And many a dreaming maid is stirred. 

And serious money-getter. 
To hear the doctors say at last 

That Kipling's getting better. 

March 3, 1899 

58 



PARTED 

Side by side we sit, and still, 

Since your last light-uttered word. 

Far beyond the sunset hill, 

Swifter than the flight of bird, 

My untrammelled thought has flown. 

Flashing o'er a continent, 

Taking kingdoms for its own ; 

Like a hooded penitent 

Tarried at a wayside shrine ; 

Read upon an iron gate : 

" Thou art thine and I am mine ; " 

Marvelled at this curious fate. 

Heart to heart, and face to face, 
Vowed for better or for worse. 
We are parted by a space 
Ample as the universe. 
Adequate to bring to naught 
All the vows that e'er were heard : 

Where has been your vagrant thought 
Since your last light-uttered word ? 

1911 

59 



ARTHUR SULLIVAN 

Singer of songs and master of the keys, 
He lies with quiet lips and folded hands ; 
Never again to gather harmonies 
From dreamy shores and unadventured lands. 

Never again to list the ethereal throng 

Who touch their strings in music's loftier sphere ; 

Never to fit the splendor of their song 

To the crude longing of the common ear. 

For him the lowlier wove their fragrant bays, 
Prophet and bard of what is sweet and good. 
He drew them with the magic of his lays ; 
They flushed and smiled because they understood. 

Often and long his agile fancy wrought 
Out of sheer 303^ fantastic melodies, 
Linking its airy music to the thought 
Of one whose name we like to speak with his. 

Kin to the tenderer cadence of his song. 
Tears in his voice there were and touch of pain. 
He sang, a plaintive minstrel, to the throng ; 
They flushed and sighed and understood again. 



60 



In other mood he touched a nobler theme, 
Duty and purpose and the World Afar, 
And with his sounding anthem made it seem 
We knew or guessed what God and spirit are. 

Singer of songs and master of the keys, 
He lies with quiet lips and folded hands. 
'Perchance his soul, across the eternal seas, 
Swells to new melody and understands. 

November 22, 1900 



THE VIOLIN 

Within the shadowed church I sit. 
Where candles slim and white are lit. 
And twilight sheds its softened glow 
Upon the windows' tinted show. 

As in the gray abandoned woods 
The January silence broods. 
So broods a winter silence here. 
By sculptured wall and fluted pier. 



61 



Till on the all-pervasive dark 
The organ thunders low ; and hark ! 
Above the pedals' ponderous din, 
The treble of a violin. 

Oh ! marvel of the maker's skill 
That manifests his golden will, 
And 'neath the dusky arches sings 
Accordant with the world of wings. 

Oh ! spirit of the larger air 

That spurns the maelstrom thoroughfare^ 

The barren aim, the trivial wish. 

That dwarf us and impoverish. 

Too long the mind's adventurous fleet 
May dare the whirlpool of the street ; 
Too long the soul may brave the stress 
Of life's ignoble littleness. 

But here, where twilight droops and dies. 
The land of Great Contentment lies. 
And by the candles' yellow fire 
I reach the coast of Heart's Desire. 



1911 

62 



IN OLD VOLTERRA 

In purple-peaked Volterra 

The old Etruscans dwelt ; 
They slaved and sold for yellow gold, 

And in their temples knelt. 
They had their joys and sorrows, 

As we have ours toda3% 
But who they were or whence they came 

The wisest cannot say. 

They loved their windy hilltop, 

Where ardent shines the sun ; 
They loved the steep where white and deep 

The tangled torrents run ; 
But long ago they vanished, 

Like dew before the day. 
Or like the momentary wave 

That flashes into spray. 

To prove their mighty prowess. 

Their giant walls arise 
The thickness of a goodly house 

Against the Italian skies. 
Crude were their creaking engines. 

Of childlike genius born. 
And yet these mighty battlements 

Still laugh our strength to scorn. 

63 



They were a race of potters, 

And hammerers of brass, 
And fashioners of golden cups 

That glow like polished glass. 
Their handiwork survives them : 

In chambered tombs it lies ; 
But only for a later race. 

That looks through alien eyes. 

We scan their old inscriptions, 

But find our labor vain. 
On each secretive slab we trace 

A meagre word or twain. 
Still like an antique mummy 

The ancient record stands, 
A barren silence on its lips 

And mystery in its hands. 

They raised their proud battalions 

To guard their aerie home ; 
Their reckless flags swept down the crags 

To plague the pow'r of Rome. 
Their swarth impassioned navies 

Like frenzied eagles fought ; 
But only on their foemen's scrolls 

We read the deeds they wrought. 



64 



In purple-peaked Volterra, 

Where creed has followed creed, 
The chiselled stone smiles down upon 

The She- Wolf and her breed. 
From these — the Roman victors — 

The veiled and elder age, 
Elusive and inscrutable. 

Withholds its laurelled page. 

Along the breezy highways 

The gay Italians meet, 
And jest and chaff and cheerful laugh 

Ring up and down the street ; 
But when at quiet midnight 

The magic moonlight showers, 
A ghostly band pours through the land 

And takes Etruria's towers. 



65 



RUSSIA IN THE SOUTH 

Russia, the mysterious, the purposeful, the brave, 
Sits within her northern gates and hears the tropic 

wave : 
Listens to the joyous sea that beats upon the 

strand 
Beyond Mahomet's fluted domes in crumbling 

Samarkand. 
Listens to it laugh and sing and sees its billows 

shine 
About the haughty quarterdecks of England's 

battle line. 

Crafty and insinuate, along the steppe she trails, 
Down the dark deliberate stream and where the 

mountain pales. 
The shining summit beckons her and w^ell she 

knows the way. 
As midnight knows the flush of dawn, as Volga 

knows the bay. 
Calm and keen she hurries on across the swampy 

mead. 
And Persian ports infest the dreams of her swarth 

Baltic breed. 



66 



Up the steep her path she picks and through the 
pass she steals ; 

The sunny winds of India about her face she feels. 

Tiflis the murmurous speaks to her and Babel- 
throated Kars, 

And all the subtle tribes that throng their odorous 
bazaars. 

Free and lawless once they were, but never free 
again 

Will be these new-made Muscovites of three-score 
tongues and ten. 

And still she hears the purple sea as through the 
plain she sweeps, 

Amid the millet and the maize, where deathless 
Oxus creeps. 

The cotton whitens at her feet, like Neva's thrall- 
ing snows. 

And round the battered walls of Merv cling 
honeyed musk and rose. 

Yet not for rose or musk she stays, nor lure of 
heart and lips, 

Since Persian gulf and Arab sea are calling for 
her ships. 



67 



Then spy her, warriors, as she goes to seek the 

summer's tide. 
She is incarnate Vigilance and Will personified. 
She knows the end that crowns her work, and, be 

it soon or late. 
She has the faith to persevere and yet the wit to 

wait. 
She crouches at the boundary, she slips along the 

line. 
And "Courage!" is her shibboleth, and "Stealth" 

her countersign. 

Ah, who shall bind the prisoned seed that struggles 

to the sky. 
Or stay the fated chrysalis that bears the butterfly } 
And who of those who watch her go at last shall 

say her nay. 
Since none shall rein the bounding surf or check 

the coming day } 
Aye, India for England then, for us the islands far, 
But Destiny, the portioner, holds Persia for the 

Czar. 



68 



THE DRUM 

APRIL 

Hark the drum, the eager drum, 
Calling through the city street ! 
Shall our loyal hearts be dumb ? 
No, they echo to its beat, 
For it bids the sluggard come. 
Stirs the unreadiest feet. 

JULY 

Hark the drum, the sobbing drum. 
Where the tropic branches meet ! 
Softest couch in Christendom 
Is the soldier's winding sheet. 
Here shall rest and silence come, 
Rest and silence sweet. 

AUGUST 

Hark the drum, the exultant drum, 
Laughing, crying, bittersweet ! 
Grief and glory are the sum 
Of our phantom days and fleet. 
Home the victor w arriors come— 
Oh, the winding sheet ! 

1898 

69 



THE GIRLS OF COLLEGE HILL 

A Sentimental Ballad of Commencement Day 

In solemn double file 
The grave alumni go, 

Descending still the shaded hill 
With serious step and slow, 
The morning breezes swell 
The old commencement tune 

That turns the heart with gentlest art 
To many a distant June. 

The freshmen in their pride 
March first behind the band ; 

Thus fate forsooth to lucky youth 
Inclines with generous hand. 
But grudge them not their joy, 
For June again will come — 

They'll be the rear some other year 
And hardly hear the drum. 

A plaintive sight are we, 
A picture-book of Man, 
With first the gladsome undergrads., 
A blithe and beardless clan. 



70 



And as we march along, 
Alas, the unwelcome truth : 
Increasing age with every page 
And fewer signs of youth. 

But if relentless Time, 

The tyrant with the glass, 
Has been unkind to those behind 

They'll have to let it pass. 

Behold, perennial youth 

We see before us still- 
Forever fair and free from care. 

The girls of College Hill. 

Their braids were brown the day 
We led the marching file. 

And many a flash beneath a lash 
Lit up a friendly smile. 
Now we are gray, perhaps, 
And get no kindly sign. 

But they look sweet along the street 
To every man in line. 

And when we come again, 
A little graver grown. 
Old graduates with hairless pates 



71 



And daughters of our own, 
May they be there to greet 
Our solemn progress still, 
With cheeks of rose untouched by woes, 
The girls of College Hill ! 



BEAUTY'S SISTERS 

Mystery is Beauty's sister- 
Follows fast where Beauty wanders. 

Who that sees her can resist her. 

As with dusky eyes she ponders ? 

Chin in hand, she sits half smiling, 

Thrilling, teasing and beguiling. 

Beauty hath a sad-eyed sister, 
Tender-visaged Melancholy. 

'Neath the moonlight seek and tryst her- 
She will teach you all is folly : 

Like a sick and broken spirit. 

Barred from joy but fluttering near it. 



72 



LEO XIII 

Leo is dead. The holy, the august, 
Lays his frail body in the common dust. 
Let us not mourn the spirit bright and fair 
That mingles fearless with its native air. 

So perishes the scholar and the seer ; 
So fades the tasselled corn within the ear. 
To ripe fruition speeds the soul of man, 
And flees as it has fled since time began. 

Whither ? we know not. Whence ? we cannot say. 
We are but creatures of a passionate day. 
And, high or low, to this still end we come, 
Where the dim eye is closed, the voice is dumb. 

Leo the stately in his snowy shroud 
Hears not the sobbing clamor of the crowd. 
Pallid his hands are folded on his breast ; 
On his w an face the eternal shadows rest. 

God's earthly vicar, yet when all is said, 
Like the obscurest peasant he lies dead. 
To his pathetic heights he rose with pain, 
Only to sink into the dust again. 



73 



Sorry the world if this ^^'ere all it meant : 
A day of work, with joy and trouble blent, 
Respite at eve, or else an hour to weep, 
And then the unconscious recompense of sleep ! 

Was this sharp soul, this fascinating mind, 
One with the form it seems to leave behind ? 
Shall we to earth commit the vital spark 
That never held communion with the dark ? 

Better the faith that builds its airy tower 
Above the sights and senses of the hour, 
And needs no line or plummet to decide 
That Heav'n lies round about us, far and wide. 

Better the hope, unbound by reason*s rules, 
That flouts the sordid dictum of the schools. 
Rejects the test of laboratory art 
And finds a higher reason in the heart. 

Leo is dead. The saintly, the profound, 
Goes to his dreamless pallet in the ground, 
But shall his lightning wit, his lustrous mirth. 
Be buried in the confines of the earth ? 



74 



These of the spirit were, and spirit scorns 
The grave that has no resurrection morns, 
Eludes the solemn requiem and dirge, 
And floats where scarce the murmured masses 
surge. 

Late in the quiet Vatican there lay 

A frame outworn of parched and crumbling clay, 

A dwelling place decrepit and decayed 

Where yet the tenant spirit moved and played. 

Its ninety years of wracking task and thought 
Mocked at the devastation they had wrought. 
Yet, wreathed with ruin, still there flashed and 

smiled 
The kingly spirit, undisturbed and mild. 

Render to earth, since render it we must, 
The melancholy tribute of the dust, 
But yield to God the spirit pure and clean. 
That has no kinship with the low and mean. 



July 2 U 1903 



75 



JOHN HAY 

At peace he lies, with love and honors crowned. 
For whom we grieve that never saw his face ; 

The knightliest figure in the whole world round : 
His thought was kindness and his word was 
grace. 

To lust of power he never lent his hand, 
Nor kept the old tradition of intrigue ; 

In new esteem he girt us, land with land. 
And set the unkindred in a kindred league. 

Others there are for whom our pulsing praise 
To wider bounds in broadening circles goes : 

For them the pomp, the echoing shout, the bays ; 
For him the tenderer tribute of the rose. 

Call him not cold in whom the poet-heart 
Burned like a beacon on the tossing sea ; 

Who touched the harp-string with a natural art 
And the true passion of high minstrelsy. 

His note was strong as his must be who stands 
Happy upon the mountain's silent peak. 

Sees the warm life that floods the river strands. 
And feels its answering flush within his cheek. 

76 



Sorrow he knew and disappointment's blight, 
The world awry, ambition lured astray, 

Yet clasped the hour's illusor}' delight. 
And dwelt with truth and beaut}^ day by day. 

Lay him to rest where pines may sing their song 
Above the ashes of their brother bard. 

Where the unfaded stars, through evenings long, 
His grave of starry memories shall guard. 



July U 1905 



TWO VIEWS OF WAR 

Stirring drums in a sunny street. 
Bonny flags in the azure sky. 

Luring melody, tramping feet. 
And hope in many an eye. 

Death in a still and shadowed room, 
A wasted boyish face at rest, 

A sunbeam quivering in the gloom. 
And woe in a woman's breast. 

1898 

77 



WHEN THE CIRCUS COMES TO 
TOWN 

When the circus comes to town, 

In its man3^-hued array, 
With its Beauty and its Clown— 

With its Sorrowful and Gay — 
Then a long-forgotten dream 

For the hour renews its sway. 
And we catch the distant gleam 

Of a magic holiday. 

Though the jaunt>^ flags are frayed, 

Yet they flutter, fold on fold. 
And the shabby cavalcade 

Still is brave with red and gold. 
If the Beauty's bloom be paint. 

Must we scorn her charm, or scold ? 
Every subterfuge and feint 

Shall be sacred as of old. 

Let the Disenchanted fuss 

At the antics of the Clown ; 
He shall still be dear to us 

In his quaint old cap and gown. 
Hail ! the Sorrowful and Gay. 

Hail ! the lady in her crown. 
May we greet them manj^ a day, 

When the circus comes to town ! 

78 



THE HILLS OF PAIN 

Are they for us, the barren hills that rise 
Above the woodlands and the budding grain, 
These purple heights that fix our startled eyes, 
The hills of pain ? 

Here glooms gaunt Nebo, trod of him whose feet 
Might never press the olive valley's strand. 
How harsh to him its sullen slope ; how sweet 
The Promised Land ! 

Here frowns the steep where He, the Low and 

Meek, 
With earth's imperious pageantry was tried. 
Here the upleaping pulse, the pallid cheek. 
Are sanctified. 

And here uplifts, outside a city's wall. 
For holy Grief or hateful Scorn to see. 
Of all sad hills the saddest hill of all. 
With crosses three. 

These are the hills where anger sinks to sleep. 
Where passion in the dreamless air is dipped. 
And skies are rent, and deep is torn from deep. 
And souls are stripped. 

79 



All we whose feet by flowered paths are led 
Some day shall face the tempest and the rain. 
Oh, may we then with quiet courage tread 
The hills of pain ! 



ARCHEOLOGY 

The crumbled city stifles in the sand ; 
Its turrets with the shifting dust are blent. 
Gone is the pride of every monument ; 
Gone is the spicy bloom of Samarkand. 
A hush is on the devastated land. 
Thebes from her ruins beckons drowsy Ghent ; 
Rome steals along the road that Athens went. 
Yet ne'er in vain was raised the builder's hand ; 
Never in vain the sculptor shaped his cast : 
The kind earth gives us back again the art 
That thrilled the ancient idler in the mart ; 
And the new city shall forever fold 
Close to its heart the vision of the Past, 
The undying joy and splendor of the Old. 



80 



THE CAMPUS TOWER 

Erected in memory of Carrie Mathilde Brown by her 
husband, Paul Bajnotti 

Here by Brunonia's storied halls, 
And 'mid the singing boughs of trees, 

Love builds with Art these lifted walls 
In pledge of deathless memories ; 

And day by day as youth shall pass 

Lusty and ardent on its way. 
This shadow on the quiet grass. 

This sunny shaft of red and gray, 

Shall tell the tale of dusk and dawn, 
The swift completion of the hour 

That dims the brilliance of the lawn 
And steals the beauty of the tower. 

Yet oft to him of careless mind, 
Who ceases from his game or book. 

Some peering spirit, undefined. 
From brick and stone shall seem to look. 

And he shall own the moment's mood, 
And in his eyes shall burn the fires 

That high and gracious womanhood 
Through the uncounted days inspires. 



81 



THE EARTH AND I 

Into the airy wilderness 
The outcast Earth was flung, 

A lonely and m^ sterious thing 
In boundless silence hung, 

A vagrant in the starry plain 
When Time himself was young. 

Whither she flees she cannot tell 
Or whence her course may be. 

Is she the daughter of the gods 
And safe in their decree, 

Or but a hapless wanderer 
Upon a shoreless sea ? 

No time for questions vain as these 

Or futile doubts has she : 
Her busy thought is with the grass 

And the green-budding tree. 
To live and love is all she needs 

For her philosophy. 

To her primeval impulse true. 
She plants her seed and reaps ; 

Her emerald harvest decks the fields 
And crowns the mountain-steeps. 

And over all the race of men 
Her watch and ward she keeps. 

82 



So too my isolate pathway lies 
Where silent skies impend ; 

The unblazoned firmament enfolds 
The marvellous way I wend ; 

Daylight and darkness have no word 
Of origin or end. 

Yet from the exile Sphere I take, 
To guide my fleeting hour, 

The will to pattern after her 
Within my little power, 

And, holding steadfast to the sun, 
Bring forth some leaf or flower. 



THEN AND NOW IN PORT ARTHUR 

There was laughter in the houses, there was 

music in the street ; 
There was jesting on the parapets and feasting in 

the fleet ; 
There was riot in the vodka-shop and reeling up 

the hill. 
And an artificial loveliness that leaned upon the 

sill. 



83 



And 'twas : " Far from home 

And a truce to sorrow. 
The puppet play will last to-day — 

The Devil take to-morrow ! " 

There was graft in golden uniform and jobbery in 
rags; 

There was unreflecting carnival beneath the yel- 
low flags ; 

There was betting at the races, there was poverty 
and theft, 

And a morn that rose serenely on the little that 
was left. 

So 'tw^as : " Far from home 

But we'll beg or borrow, 
For none to-day is bound to pay — 

The Devil take to-morrow ! " 

There was studious bravado, there was simulated 
glee ; 

There was masquerading envy that was plain 
enough to see ; 

There w^as shame disguised as swagger, there was 
surface-smiling grief, 

And a reckless lust of pleasure that was half be- 
yond belief. 



84 



And 'nvas : " Far from home 
And from friends afar." Oh ! 

The strange array of sad and gay, 
And menace of the morrow. 



There is silence in the houses, there is slaughter 

in the street. 
And the forts look dow n disconsolate upon the 

shattered fleet ; 
There is stench along the gutter where the carrion 

has lain. 
And the women of the painted cheek are pale 

amid the slain. 

And 'tis : " Far from home 

In the haunt of sorrow. 
Where victor-race and alien-face 

Will fly their flags to-morrow." 

1905 



85 



ALEXIS NIKOLEVITCH 

There is a little lad that lies 

Upon a broidered bed, 
Unconscious of the glad surprise 
That dances in his people's eyes, 
The trumpet-praise that peals and dies, 
The banners glowing in the skies — 

The whispered flag of red. 

He does not heed the leaping cheer. 

The cannon's lusty boom. 
The prophet screed he cannot hear. 
The shout of joy, the sob of fear. 
The pledge, the mass, the prayer, the jeer 
Reach not his autocratic ear. 

Within his darkened room. 

He cares not for the lordl}- guise 
Of monarchs born and bred. 
He know s no whit of pomp or prize. 
The stifling hope, the dark surmise. 
The love that guards, the hate that spies, 
The soldier agon}' that cries 
Amid the soldier dead. 



86 



For him shall Fortune year by year 

Strow tares amid the bloom, 
Leaven his laughter with a tear, 
And on his light-heart fancy sear 
The shroud and immemorial bier — 
Yet he, a drowsy infant, here 

Dreams naught of life or doom. 

1904 

NO COUNTRY THAT IS STRANGE 

When I am vexed with presage of the day 
Whereon I must go out into the dark, 
On death's immense adventure to embark. 
And leave behind the beacons of the bay, 
I turn to watch my little son at play. 
Who lately to this wonder- world hath come 
And made himself familiarly at home. 
Nor dreams he is expatriate or astray. 

From what green earth he journeys, who shall say ? 
What star, what void, what far experience ? 
Yet here within this scheme of time and sense 
He takes untaught his glad and natural way. 

So know I that in all God's sweep and range 
My soul shall find no country that is strange. 

87 



STEADFAST AND TRUE 

In Memory of Nathan Babcock 

He bore his part, performed the allotted task, 
Steadfast and true, serene and confident. 

He never thought to hesitate or ask 
Where led the strait and narrow way he went. 

For praise or privilege he did not care : 
He served his fellows and he sought the truth. 

Age laid its finger on his brow and hair, 
But left him still the valorous heart of youth : 

A heart for battle, though the fight he fought 
Won him no victor's fragrant wreath of bay. 

For the high cause he cherished most he wrought,. 
And, hoping much, flung ease and sloth away. 

He kept the faith, through struggle and through 
pains. 

Steadfast and confident, serene and true. 
Less what he did than what he was remains 

To us who loved him better than he knew. 



June U 1902 



88 



ALCHEMY 

All time is June to me, 
Each day is blue and gold ; 

The robin sings in his greenwood tree^ 
Jubilant as of old, 
For true as true is she 
Whom gods and angels bless. 

And all the world is changed for me. 
Because she whispered " yes." 

Because she whispered " yes " 

In that still summer night, 
I've fellowshipped with happiness 

And journeyed with delight. 

Her cheek was all aglow. 

Her tender eye was wet. 
Her voice was tremulous and low — 

I seem to hear it yet. 

What mystery is this. 

What alchemy untold } 
A simple word, a fleeting kiss. 

Have turned the world to gold. 

Nor you nor I can tell. 

The wise may only guess, 
But this I know, that all is well, 

Because she whispered " yes." 

89 



THE GHOST 

Within the human face is wrought 
The trace of passion and of thought, 
The creed of self, the dream of gain, 
Or love's self-sacrificing pain. 

And we who see in others' eyes 
The buried Past in living guise 
Forget the ghost of seasons flown 
That peers relentless from our own. 



THE SILVERSMITH OF VAN 

Before his forge the silversmith is bent ; 

One hand upon the bellows gently plays ; 

The leathern zephyr stirs the scarlet blaze ; 

His eye is on the crucible intent. 

For in its brazen orifice is pent 

A shining storm of metal that delays 

To give him back his unimpatient gaze 

Reflected in its fiery element. 

But yet a moment, and its cr> stal glow 

Reveals his master brow, his victor smile — 



90 



The Great Refiner leans above His metal so ; 

With flame and tempest troubles it awhile, 
Content if from the melting-pot below 

His image he may patiently beguile. 



THE VOICE 

Like love in squalor, gold in common stone 
Or virtue in the dust, sometimes we find 
A gloried voice, of heart-persuasive tone. 
Linked strangely with a dark and shallow mind ; 
As if the Master Player had but blown 
His ardor through a channel dull and blind. 
That has no understanding of its own 
With which to read His purpose glad and kind. 
It speaks His glowing pleasure on the air. 
His faithful watch. His marvellous intent. 
And He who plays and he who listens share 
The joy denied the sounding instrument. 
Shall it, like reed and trumpet, never learn 
The high impassioned thoughts that through it 
burn ? 



91 



THE NEW AMERICA 

Verses for the exercises in old St. Paul's Church, Wickford, 
R. I., June 15, 1907, in honor of the Colonial dead of the Great 
Swamp Fight, 1675 

Two hundred years of sun and shower 
Have touched this sacred frame of oak ; 

Two hundred years of fleeting flower 
Have sung the hardy English folk 

For whom our telltale bronze we place 

In token of our common race, 

In token of the Saxon blood 
That beats in lively breasts to-day, 

And round the oceans' varied flood 
Still sets its undiminished sway : 

The noblest of the noble strains 

Still strives, still conquers and still reigns. 

Yet peace to them, the luckless braves. 

Of swarthy and impassive face, 
Whose tangled and unhonored graves 

No tablets mark, no garlands grace ! 
The freemen of the swampy maze 
Are worthy of the white man's praise. 



92 



Beneath the grasses and the snows 

The trooper and his foe are spent ; 
Above them blooms the friendly rose, 

Where stood their rival cot and tent. 
They lie in placid sleep the same, 
Nor need we fix their hostile fame. 

But we shall need their crafty power. 
And kindness more than theirs beside, 

To rule in this perplexing hour 
The pleasant land for w hich they died ; 

To save it in the day of stress 

For its own highest usefulness. 

No more the Saxon tills the soil 
For which his fathers' blood was spent; 

The alien's back is bowled wdth toil 
Along the country road they went ; 

The plodding Pole, the patient Jew, 

Have won the ancient realm anew. 

And where the chy's thousands meet. 
The Turk, the Arab, make their home. 

And, planted in the humblest street. 
Rise New Fayal and Little Rome ; 

And scarce the English tongue they speak 

Where Hun greets Hun and Greek meets Greek. 

93 



An ampler blend of grave and gay 
Must tinge our new and wider thought; 

Some light Italian naivete, 
Some magic by the Indus wrought ; 

For here the unprovincial sun 

Finds all the nations merged in one. 

LOVE AND HATE 

When Love has turned to Hate, 
He takes a valiant air ; 
He stalks among the high and great, 
He frowns upon his fair. 
His soul is fierce and hot. 
His brow is stern and cold — 
Ah ! Hate is proud, 
Though in its shroud 
Lies the old passion disavowed. 

When Love that once was Hate 
Has turned to Love once more. 
He's but a suppliant at the gate, 
A beggar at the door ; 
A cringing thing, and poor. 
That late with passion flamed— 
Ah ! Love that dies 
Will never rise 
With the old gladness in his eyes. 

94 



YOUTH AND NIGHT 

When Nature at the close of day 
Presents her thrilling mystery play, 
And sets her stage in tragic hues 
Wherewith the ghostly houses fuse ; 

When here and there, like earthly stars. 
The friendly lamps fling yellow bars. 
Mere trifling paths of golden light 
That lead to nowhere in the night ; 

When on the faithful harbor's breast 
Are borne the colors of the West, 
And past the reef at Napatree 
The moon lies silver on the sea ; 

When, o'er the clustered hilltops, Sound, 
Subdued and sweet, goes tiptoe round, 
Persuaded by the hour to croon 
Her gay tumultuous song of noon- 
Then shall a lusty youth and fleet. 
Who raced and shouted down the street, 
Forsake his comrades of the day 
And, dusk-enchanted, steal away. 



95 



In some mysterious shape and dim 
The starry eve shall speak to him, 
And hold him, pensive cheek in hand. 
To dream upon the darkened land ; 

To feel, beyond the day's delight, 
The full-orbed glory of the night. 
The magic of the lavish bloom 
That breathes upon the quiet gloom — 

The lilac by the garden wall 
That blows about his face its thrall. 
And when his playmates whistle by, 
Unheedful of the splendid sky. 

Unmindful of the brotherhood 

Of youth and night and whispering wood. 

Then he amid the misty grass 

Shall shrink aside to let them pass. 

And if he lives till he is old. 
The summer night for him shall hold 
The subtle charm that round him clung 
In lilac time, when he was young. 



96 



JUN 21 191^ 



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